Wastes, under normal conditions, are gradually broken down or biodegraded by native microorganisms in the environment. However, biodegradation reactions are often hindered by environmental fluctuations such as changes in temperature, pH, salinity, water and air supply, etc. Wastes, such as wastewater and soil wastes, can be purified biologically by bioaugmentation, which is the introduction of a group of non-native microorganisms or genetically engineered variants to accelerate biodegradation of the waste and return the environment altered by contaminants to its original condition.
Some major drawbacks of bioaugmentation are that the microorganisms selected for bioaugmentation may not thrive in their new environment and will have little to no impact on the waste treatment. Short survival or lack of growth of the microorganisms can be caused by inadequately activating, acclimating and proliferating the microorganisms in the waste environment to be treated.
Prior attempts for bioaugmentation involved microbes grown or proliferated in an apparatus or a system where a major source of the nutrients is externally supplied. As a result, the augmented microbes have to be acclimated to the environment to be treated in an additional step. Insufficiently acclimated microbes will experience short survival or lack of growth in the waste treatment system.
It would be desirable to provide improved bioaugmentation methods for purifying waste.